I always wanted this dilemma but, to be honest, I never thought it would happen in 2014. Certainly not 12 months ago. Cas at Wembley and Everton with a top of the table clash at Goodison. And, by the way, it was only the first half of that that seemed implausible.

Privately, after 22 years supporting Castleford, and having just turned 50, I had begun saying to myself ‘one more trip to Wembley and I’ll be a happy man’. A morbid thought. My lonely 150-mile round trips to see us 36–0 down to Warrington at half-time, with a family back at home in the garden, with more sense, had all but killed my dream. Thank you, Daryl Powell, thank you.

I’ve always thought there’s something special about Cas. Then again, I’m biased. When you grow up as a rugby league fan you inevitably tune in very quickly to the game’s roots, its values and what makes it what it is. The strength in adversity, the prejudice the sport has faced, the often forlorn fight for media recognition, have all served to create a family who love the sport and share a collective responsibility to protect it and spread the word. And I’ve always thought Cas are one of only a handful of clubs who truly represent all of that. That’s why it’s special.

Cas is a rugby league town. It’s a town where boys use their hands and not their feet. Of tough young men, often from tough circumstances, playing a tough sport better than almost anybody else. Well that’s how it was when I was a lad.

Maybe that’s the heart of the rivalry with Leeds. To be honest, in my early days, in the 70s, Featherstone Rovers on Boxing Day was the pinnacle of the sporting calendar. We always seemed to be better than Leeds, despite them waving their chequebooks at our legendary half-backs Alan Hardisty and Keith Hepworth, my father’s heroes, and, more hurtful than anything, at our icon, our favourite son, Malcolm Reilly. In reality, it didn’t hurt that much, they poached them after they’d given their hearts and souls to Cas. Players didn’t ever want to leave Cas. Cas was as special to them as it was to me.

From my youthful and opinionated perspective, Leeds were inferior. It had a great football team, it was a big city, it had a big ground that we visited for big games, it probably had very posh dressing rooms. But it just wasn’t rugby league as I saw it, through amber and black spectacles.

Probably my favourite Cas team were the one who won the Floodlit and John Player Trophies in 1977. My shoebox of a bedroom had become a shrine to Castleford. Malcolm was back after his time on Sydney’s north shore but for all his greatness, he didn’t have pride of place on my bedroom wall – that went to Bruce Burton, a stand–off with a mesmerising sidestep and blistering pace.

Cas had drawn Leeds at Headingley in a cup quarter-final, I think, and Leeds had come out in the Yorkshire Post in the week and said they’d worked out Bruce’s sidestep. Of course, I had nothing to fear, Bruce danced his way through the Leeds defence time and time again. From day one, it’s always been sweet to win at Headingley.

Wanting to retain the friendship of one of rugby league’s most amazing men, I can concede that Leeds have caught us up in recent years. Harry Jepson knows I’m gritting my teeth. But of course, it has taken a Cas lad to get them going – Gary Hetherington, who came in as chief executive in 1996. Is he really a Cas fan?

And I can’t help but think they have come on to our patch to do it, taking the next Hardistys and Hepworths this time before they’ve worn the amber and black. It’s time for us to reclaim junior rugby in Methley, Oulton, Rothwell and East Leeds. These are rugby league towns. Just like Cas.